ON CAPE BRETON. 181 



it was the Basque fishcnneu who first made the cape ' on the easteru coast, and named it 

 after a Cape Breton in that very Basque country which, in the earliest times of which 

 there is any record, sent many adventurous sailors to Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. On the other hand, it is urged that the name is only a memorial of the voy- 

 ages of the Breton and Norman sailors and fishermen of Honfleur, Dieppe and St. Malo, 

 who sailed in company to eastern America even before the days of Columbus.' In sup- 

 port of the Breton claim we find on the oldest maps of the sixteenth century that the cape 

 is described as Cap de Bretton, Cap aux Bretons, Cavo de Bretonni, and the mainland, 

 afterwards Acadie, as the Terre aux Bretons, or Terra de los Bretones, or Terra de Breto. 

 In a Portuguese portolano map, the date of which is believed to be either 1514 or 1520, 

 there is a country described in Portuguese as " the laud discovered by the Bretons." On 

 the authority of a " great French captain," supposed to be Jean Parmentier of Dieppe, 

 whose narrative is credited to 1539, the Breton and Norman voyagers are described as 

 having visited the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence as early as 1504, and given the 

 well-known headland of the island its present name. The entrance of the gulf, between 

 Cape Breton and Newfoundland, is described in Allefonsce's map of 1544-5 as " L'Entrée 

 des Bietons." In view of the vagueness of the Basque theory, which is chiefiy supported 

 by the fact of the existence of a Cape Breton on the southeastern coast of France, we can 

 hardly fail to come to the conclusion that the Bretons gave to the cape the name it has 

 always borne. Indeed we may well believe that the two capes in France and America 

 owe their same name to these very adventurous mariners, who have from immemorial 

 times hovered ofF the coasts or anchored in the harbours of the Bay of Biscay and of the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence as well. 



But while there is every reason to believe that the cape was named early in the six- 

 teenth century, wo have no authentic record of the exact date when the island itself was 

 called after its most eastern headland. Leaving the realms of mere speculation, which 

 only bewilders and never satisfies a practical historian, we must content our.selves with 

 the fact that the name of Cape Breton has always clung to the island so long frequented 

 by Basque and Breton fishermen. During the first forty years and later in the sixteenth 

 century the name is found on old maps which have come down to us.-' It is given either to 

 to the most eastern point of the mainland, a region described as Terre des Brelans or Terra de 

 Brelo, according to the nationality of the map-maker, or to a little island adjoining. It is 

 interesting to note to how many makers of the old maps of the Gulf of St. Lawrence the 

 existence of an island occupying the present position of Cape Breton appears to have been 



' "Cape Breton, lietter known to tbo ni.ariners of the co.nst by the name of Port Novy Land, from the small 

 a'ljai>ent islet of Puerto Niicvo, is t!i(! most eastern and also the lowest part of the coast. It is singular that this 

 point, exposed to tlie rontimial frettin;.', dasliinir and ebullition of this peeuliarly re.stloss soa, and placed at the 

 mercy of every storm that sweeps the Atlantic, ghould yet bear so little evidence of its power. The firm materials 

 of its composition seem scarcely to have been worn by the efl'ects of centuries; and though so low, bold water 

 forming its margin, instead of reefs of scattered rocks and other marks of ruin, is a proof of its unbroken strength." 

 Halibnrton. "History of Nova Scotia " (Halifa-x, N. S., 182!)), ii. 213-214. Some call the island in question Porto 

 Novo, which would indicate a Portngnese origin. 



^ See App. VI (last paragraph) to this work. 



■■' See App. VI to this work, w hero a summary is given of the old map^ on which Capo P.reton as a cape or 

 island is marked. Extracts are also given in App. VII and VIII from the accounts of the voyages of Cartier, Cham- 

 plain, Bellinger (l.'iSo), Sylvester Wyett (1591), Charles Leigh (l')!>7), Nicolas Ponys (l(i72), in which mention is 

 made of the island and the cape from which it wae eventually named. 



